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17 year old Jack’s summer job, as a “nanny” for an 8 and 12 year old brother and sister, seems like it would be a cake walk.  He’ll be making really good money and all he has to do is hang out with a couple of kids for a couple months.  The major downside is that the kids live on an isolated island off the mainland that’s devoid of any modern connectivity; sure, they have generator-powered electricity, but there’s no phone, no wi-fi or internet, and the only connection to the outside world is the twice weekly ferry that passes by the island.  Willing toRead More →

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Acclaimed British novelist Catherine Fisher (Incarceron – The Times’ Children’s Book of the Year) is back this Fall with a new subtly woven, spooky Faust-inspired, fantasy, Darkwater. In the early twentieth century in a windswept British village on the sea, 16 year old Sarah Trevelyan would give anything to regain the power, prestige, and wealth her family held for generations but lost in the folly of a card game gone wrong.  Reduced to living with her family’s only remaining loyal servant, Sarah’s sickly and broken father sinks deeper into a wasting illness while she is forced to humble herself as a scullery maid at the localRead More →

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Just when you thought there was nothing else to imagine when it comes to dragons, out of nowhere comes Rachel Hartman‘s Seraphina.  This is a richly imagined, multifaceted, well-written tale bursting with unique ideas, intriguing characters (dragons and humans both), and a complex, riveting plot. At its heart, Seraphina is a book about belonging: “he did not know the truth of me, yet he perceived something true about me that no one else had ever noticed.  And in spite of that – or perhaps because of it – he believed me good, believed me worth taking seriously, and his belief, for one vertigious moment, madeRead More →

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Chris Westwood’s Graveyard Shift combines the best elements from stories like Men in Black, GhostBusters, Harry Potter, and more into an action-packed fantasy adventure that will get your blood pumping.  It’s a quick, delightfully scary read full of magic and a couple of likeable middle school students embarking on an adventure of a lifetime. One sunny afternoon in the graveyard near his London apartment, Ben Harvester helps out an old man who appears to stumble from exhaustion over a nearby grave.  A few days later in a far-away town at his own aunt’s funeral, Ben again sees that same old man on the outskirts ofRead More →

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In Sangu Mandanna‘s The Lost Girl, Eva is a fifteen year old girl living in London who has a life completely different than anyone she knows. She is an echo; a creation made by a group of individuals called the Weavers. She was created to prepare if her ‘other’, Amarra, were to die. Eva would take her place and continue to live Amarra’s life in India with only Amarra’s parents knowing she is an echo and not their true daughter. Eva looks identical to her ‘other’ and has been trained since birth to walk, talk, dress, and act like Amarra. Eva is convinced nothing willRead More →

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In the last installment of the action packed Archer Legacy, Gerald Wilkins and his friends Ruby and Sam are finally going to be able to put the danger posted by the ruthless Mason Green behind them and get on with their normal (well, normal for a billionaire) lives.  But just as  Mason Green’s murder trial is getting under way, Mason is mysteriously killed and Gerald is framed for his murder.  Now, Gerald is left with only one choice – to run – and his faithful friends join him in the quest to clear his name.  Their journey takes them from London to France, then toRead More →

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Will and the other 6 teens who were cured of their debilitating phobias in Patrick Carman’s Dark Eden have been reunited in the sequel, Dark Eden 2: Eve of Destruction.  Will and Marisa convince Ben, Kate, Alex, and Connor, who are all now suffering from “elderly” ailments like arthritis, dementia, and hearing loss, to join them in a trip back to Fort Eden after Will receives a letter from the hated Mrs. Goring.  Ostensibly offering them a new “cure”, this time for the problems ravaging their bodies, Mrs. Goring convinces the teens to descend into an abandoned missile silo below Fort Eden in search ofRead More →

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Everyone has secrets. Some are small and innocuous “I am going to surprise my friend with a special lunch”  but others carry much more weight “I am betraying my best friend in a terrible way.”  We carry these secrets, large and small, light and heavy, around with us every day. But when the burden of these secrets, hopes, and fears becomes to much, we have to find ways to lighten the load.  In the woods behind 10 year old Minty Mortimer’s house, there’s a big old oak tree with a gaping hole in the center, and as she discovers one summer afternoon, it’s the tree where peopleRead More →

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By 2050, global warming has turned the climate into mankind’s enemy: once “normal” weather systems like hurricanes and tornadoes are now monster storms that ravage the world with their intensity and frequency.  Life has become a dual existence of living indoors: above ground anxiously waiting for the next storm system and then spending a good deal of time in underground storm shelters wondering if your home has been annihilated.  Playgrounds are built in cavernous underground shelters, no one rides bikes, goes on picnics or travels far.  The food supply is all grown in special DNA-ture farms secure from the uncontrollable weather.  Amid this dire climate,Read More →